


Mistress of the Forest

by motherconfessor



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/F, Fae & Fairies, Falling In Love, Rescue, Swords & Sorcery, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-23 22:32:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9683756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/motherconfessor/pseuds/motherconfessor
Summary: All Kara wanted to do was find her cousin and help people, so when the opportunity to join Lena Luthor on an expedition arises, Kara thinks that everything is finally coming together.Alex thinks the expedition is the worst thing to happen. But as Kara refuses to listen to her, she has no choice but to come along as well. Leaving their home behind.However, when Lena is captured by the fey, a quest arises to rescue Lady Luthor –– though they're apparently not the only ones searching for her.





	

Lightning struck the horizon, followed by a crack of thunder. The waves grew and grew, crashing against the side of the little boat, spraying salt water against the occupant’s face.

Kara gasped, shaking her head as she pulled at the oars, relentless in her attempt to change position. In her lap, a golden compass continued to spin between North-East and North-West. Rather than give up, she planted her feet firmly on the boat and rowed harder. 

She had a duty to find her cousin and no storm would prevent her.

The oars burned her wet palms as she held the grip –– the water had become determined to snatch the tools from her hand –– still she pulled at the wood, gripping tightly. 

She tugged as the rain pelted down and waves crashed against her, knocking her against the side of the boat as she cried out. 

Pushing herself back into her seat, she steered the small boat through the waves, picking up the fallen compass. In the distance, she could see the flickering glow of a lighthouse. Or a ship.

She squinted through the storm towards the light, blind to the wave rising behind her.

Surely it was a lighthouse?

The wave crashed against her little boat, knocking the oars from her hands and into the ocean. She reached out to grab at them, but the ocean swallowed them, leaving nothing but bubbling white foam to disperse with the next wave.

She wouldn’t cry, though. No matter how desperate she felt, she had to turn the boat. Leaning forward, she scavenged through her supplies for something to steer the little boat towards the light.

Come on, come on. 

A wave struck the boat with such a large force that Kara’s body smacked sideways into the edge of the boat, knocking her unconscious. For a moment, she felt dizzy, her eyes staring up at storm clouds, a sudden roar in her ears that grew and grew. Until she realised that the clouds were a dark, ink-black wave, lifting the little boat. 

Kara felt unusual far away as the boat lifted. She felt as though she were in a dream.

When the wave struck down with the boat tossed, Kara felt as though she was flying, and then falling. All of sound seemed to be muffled, an icy, wet feeling surrounded her body as she fell.

It didn’t seem so bad, her thoughts drifted as her eyes closed against the incoming darkness. The thunder wasn’t so loud anymore

 

* * *

 

The sun had risen late that morning, nudging Alex awake with dappled sunlight through the front of the shelter. When she climbed out from the lean-to, her father was there with Pebbles, their horse. He gave a nod of approval at the construction she’d made. 

The compacted leaves had held well against the winds, and the a-frame had helped against most of the rain. Alex was quite proud of her own handiwork, too.

“It didn’t collapse,” he said, smiling at her.

“Because I made it,” she told him, tossing a small smirk to her father. “You know, maybe I should fix that leak in our roof.”

“We’ll see.” 

Jeremiah smiled at his daughter, a hum of approval on his lips before he looked around the woods. “So, where to now?”

That was the question. Alex thought over everything her father taught her growing up as she looked over the trees. They weren’t too densely populated that she had trouble finding moss growing on the northern side. Studying the other trees, she knew then that they had to go right of the moss so as to head east.

“This way,” she pointed.

Her father’s eyebrows rose, “Are you sure?”

Alex’s confidence wavered at his disbelieving tone before she nodded again. “Yes,” she said, swallowing back any hesitation.

They continued walking through the woods with their horse following behind. Every mile or so, Alex would look for moss before altering their direction as required. Before the morning had finished, they arrived at the sound of the ocean's waves.

Pushing through the last of the trees, Alex stood proudly before the wide bank of sand. The beach carried on to some rocks, but for the most part it was just sand and water. “There,” she said, turning to her father. “I was right.”

“I’ll make a hunter out of you, yet,” he said. “At the very least, you will have the skills to survive.”

Alex’s smile wavered at her father’s words. Her parents, for the most part, had a farm with which they tended to most of the year. During winter, her father worked with the hunters as her mother served as a second to the village healer, Jocelyn. This allowed them to survive while their crop dwindled down to just carrots and potatoes. 

Alex had often followed her mother as an assistant over the course of the cold season. She also helped Jocelyn when a spare set of hands required it. She’d run for herbs, helped with births (just as she had for the few farm animals they owned). She’d even once held down a patient who required amputation. 

The fact of the matter was, Alex knew that she enjoyed healing far more than she’d ever enjoy hunting. Alex also knew that if she were to ask, her father would permit her apprenticeship with Jocelyn. But her father was so hopeful of this for her that she couldn’t bear to hurt him. Hunting, he had told her, would provide for the family. As such, she knew it would be her duty.

The sun felt warm on her skin as they eased the horse onto the sand. She knew that there were two fishing rods in the pack and that they were headed to where the rocks were to reel in some fish in for lunch and dinner. 

Since she was little, her father would take her on small hunting trips with him when the farm was between seasons. Over the past recent years, it became obvious that this was because he was training her. Fishing had always come easily to Alex. She was especially good with a net.

“What do you believe that is?” Jeremiah asked her, pointing to where something had washed up on the shore of the beach. It was about fifty yards from where they were headed to fish. 

“Parts of a shipwreck?” Alex suggested. 

Jeremiah frowned, his eyes focusing on the small, wooden embankment. “Stay with Pebbles for me.”

Alex blinked, taking the reins from her father. “Do you think it’s dangerous?” she asked, but the words fell deaf to her father.

Jeremiah began stalking over the yellow sand, his tall brown boots sinking in the loose banks as he walked over. Alex waited, shifting as she held the horse’s reins. She squinted at the object, wondering what made her father so wary of it. Maybe it was a shark that had been washed ashore by the storm or maybe a very small whale calf. 

She watched her father walk over to the shipwreck, and then she heard her father call her name, his hands waving her over.

Alex went to take a step and then decided against it, climbing onto the horse instead to gallop across the sands. As she edged closer to her father, she realised that it was not just a boat, but a person.

Of course it was a person, how had she not seen that before? 

She went to climb off the horse when her father stopped her. “No, I need you to take her to your mother. She needs a healer.”

“She’s alive?” Alex didn’t believe it, looking at the small girl. She was younger and much smaller than herself, with long blonde hair. Going by the bits of the boat, she was shipwrecked from the deadly storm.

She seemed peculiarly dressed, as well. I Alex had never seen such brightly dyed leathers before, which told her that the girl wasn’t local. 

“What do we do?” she asked.

Her father was looking the girl over, as if weighing the decision to leave her here or move her. 

Making the decision, her father lifted the girl up in his arms. She must not have weighed much, as Jeremiah easily tossed her onto the horse. 

“Take her back to the farm,” he said, removing one the heavier bags from the horse. “Go straight home, do you understand? The Trade’s Road is south, that way,” he pointed to where the other side of the beach was.

“Yes.”

“Don’t go through the village.”

“I know,” Alex said. “I’ll follow the sun, don’t worry.” 

“Good.” He swallowed, looking her in the eyes. “I trust you with this, okay?”

“I know.”

With her father’s nod, Alex took the horse and galloped straight home with the girl in her arms.

The Trade’s Road wasn’t difficult to find, worn away from hundreds of people dragging heavy loads upon waggons. From there, she headed west, back to her farm and outside of the village. She had to circle around the forest, but the road made an easy passage.

She only saw a few travellers as she headed towards home. Mostly on them were on foot, carrying heavy bags on their back, with frail looking mules and horses. Alex knew that lots of people were leaving the cities as the fey began to draw in their attacks, causing mystical but frightening problems. The countryside was seen safer.

Danvers, the village she resided in, had a few farms. Mostly its revenue was made as a trade stop for those headed on to the Trading Post a few days away, or to the city, where the Earl, Lord Luthor resided over. 

As a village, Danvers was small, but constantly bustling with incoming traffic. It sat between the hills and not far away from the nearby river. It wasn’t far from the ocean, and the woods nearby didn’t contain any fey. For the village’s occupants, this meant that they were quite well off.

It took the rest of the day, riding hard on the horse. Pebbles was only a farm horse. He was heavy-built, with thick legs and white, long hair around his hoofs. He was meant to help tow equipment for spring, carry the harvest, not gallop across the country.

But he did the job well enough, as if able to hear the banging of Alex’s heart.

The girl in her arms didn’t move. Her head lolled with the rise and fall of the horse, and her chest moved with slow breaths, but she didn’t stir. She just laid against Alex’s torso, pale and limp.

Alex pulled her closer, feeling the girl shiver even under the sun. 

Once, the girl’s leg twitched, but Alex didn’t stop. She knew from being an assistant to her mother, that the body often twitched in sleep. She was alive, that was all for now.

The farm they owned was small, with only a single fenced off area to prevent the three sheep and four cows from running off. It backed into a small thicket of trees that her father often cut down for firewood in the winter.

Her mother, when she arrived, was taking in the day’s laundry. She paused, wooden pegs dropping into the pocket of her apron as Alex arrived. Her eyes wide and fearful.

“Where’s your…” she began to say, though the words drifted quietly as she stared at the girl. Moving forward, she eased the girl from Alex, taking her in her hands to inside. “Take the horse into the village and get Jocelyn,” she said.

“Dad said not to go to the village.”

“Get Jocelyn,” her mother repeated. “Don’t tell anyone else.”

Alex nodded before she left again. The village wasn’t far, and Jocelyn’s home was just a small mud-brick house towards the centre of the village. 

She knocked on the front door, banging loud. When the door didn’t open, she pushed it open and looked around the small home. Herbs hung from the ceiling. Wooden shelves were packed with different phials, labelled with pictures ranging from a foot to skull.

Jocelyn wasn’t inside. The fire was just charcoal in the hearth. Alex stepped outside, knocking on the neighbouring door. Ruth opened it, holding her newborn in her arms. “Alexandra,” she said with a surprise.

“Where’s your mother?”

“She’s not home?”

“No,” Alex said, her legs jittering. She had to get back soon, her mother couldn’t look after the girl, herself.

“I don’t think there’s been any emergency. Maybe she’s off in the hills, collecting chamomile?” 

“Thank you,” Alex nodded and took to the horse again.

“Is everything okay?” Ruth called after her.

“Mum isn’t well,” she yelled before kicking the horse to ride out of the village to where the hills were. She could only imagine her mother looking after the girl, fretting over Jocelyn taking so long. Willing herself not to panic, Alex rode towards the southern border that led to the mountains. The sun was beginning to turn the sky red as it dipped over the horizon.

In the hills, Alex found Jocelyn as her daughter had predicted. She had a basket, collecting flowers from a patch. Though they didn’t look to be chamomile.

Jocelyn looked up at Alex’s arrival and without a word, she climbed onto the horse behind her. Once before, Alex had come to Jocelyn like this. Her father had fallen in the fields, shaking violently in what Jocelyn called a seizure. Alex wasn’t sure if he would be alive when she returned.

But he had been, and so would the girl in her house.

Dusk had almost ended by the time Jocelyn arrived at the farm. With her, Alex was given the important job of running a warm bath. “Warm, not too hot. It’ll hurt her otherwise.” 

Then, she was told to grab any of her nightdresses. To make the fire bigger, smaller now. To make a soup. To…

Then the small, blonde girl was tucked into her bed, her skin looking warmer with a pink flush over her cheeks, Alex’s job was very simple then: “Stay by her side. If she wakes, give me a call.” This time, it was her mother telling her as she lit a candle in the room. The girl smelt of lavender and soap. There was a bitter smell coming from her as well, but the lavender masked it.

Eliza took a breath and smiled at her daughter. “I am so proud of you,” she said,  “You’ve become greater than I could ever have hoped for.” Then, as Alex returned her smile, she closed the door to the small bedroom. The room darkened, lit only by the small, flickering light.

Alex stared at the girl’s features, looking over the blonde fringe that covered her brow, to the small mouth. It didn’t bother her that she’d been given her bed, Alex had used the bedroll that her father left on the horse instead. What did bother her was that the girl hadn’t woken yet. She knew that if she didn’t awake tomorrow, there was little hope that she ever would.

She hoped she would wake soon. 

Alex then wondered who the girl was, how she had arrived on the beach after such a storm. Maybe she was a fey. She was pretty like the fey were said to be. If she was, then her parents would have to tell the King and he would send out a few soldiers and…

Alex’s heart felt heavy in her chest. “Are you fey?” she leant forward to ask the sleeping girl. There was only the sound of soft, slow breathing in return. Then, Alex said, “I hope you’re not. Then you can be my sister and Dad can train you to be a hunter, and I’ll be a healer with Jocelyn.” She smiled at the girl. “We have chores to do, but there’ll only be half the amount, now. And once a month, Mum takes us to the trading village. It’s only a few days away. It’s so much fun. There are teachers there, and for a vegetable, you can get any information you want. Sometimes they even give you books.”

The girl stirred and Alex turned to the door to call for her mother, but when nothing else occurred, she decided to leave her mother to rest.

Soon, Alex too felt her eyes grow heavy as she thought about having a sister. They’d do everything together, she thought. 

As she began to fall asleep, she heard her father arrive home, his boots stepping over the floor as he spoke to her mother. Soft conversation passed between them. Alex could hear her mother’s frantic words, “She’s one of them” and her father’s calmed voice, “she’s just a kid. We can’t turn her over.”

“I know, but…”  

There was quiet whispering and then the sound of footsteps again before the bedroom door opened. Alex looked up at her father’s face.

“Hey kiddo,” he whispered, opening the door wider. “You can sleep, I’ll take over watch.”

Alex shook her head, determined to stay awake, but as her father sat down beside her, she felt her eyes grow heavy. Snuggling into the side of her father, Alex felt how sore her limbs were from the past day.

“You did a good job today,” he whispered to her. “Your Mother and I are very proud of you.” 

“Can she be my sister?” Alex asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I’d like a sister. I’d teacher her everything,” she told him, before falling asleep.


End file.
